


with claws like knives and teeth like daggers

by SoulJelly



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Angst, F/M, Werewolves, Yumi and Ulrich basically being themselves as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 10:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulJelly/pseuds/SoulJelly
Summary: In which a XANA attack turns Yumi into a werewolf. As if things weren't already complicated enough.





	with claws like knives and teeth like daggers

**Author's Note:**

> Little drabble at the request of @yumigeisha on tumblr, which I had far too much fun with. I'd probably be down to write some more of this, so I'm posting it here for ease of adding another chapter if I want to. Enjoy!

The clouds disappear and the moonlight hits her all at once, milky silvery malice, drawing something sharp and primal out from under Yumi’s skin.

She gasps, the high and breathless sound sinking at its climax into something low and guttural, as the small round ellipse of her mouth splits wide with glinting white daggers of teeth. Fur bristles along her skin, erupting out of a misshapen form as her bones snap and split and shape again.

Her eyes don’t leave Ulrich’s the entire time.

Even afterwards, when XANA’s attack is over and the grey dawn leaves Yumi huddled and human in the shredded remains of her clothes, even when she doesn’t remember all she has done, his face with its expression of abject horror is burned into her like a brand.

–

 

Unfortunately, it takes another full moon and a second explosive rampage for the Lyoko warriors to realise that XANA has caused something of a… long-term problem.

It’s ridiculous, of course, but as Jeremie points out they live in a world of supercomputers, and an artificial intelligence whose machinations defy a good portion of the Earth’s laws of physics. So all in all, having a teammate turn into a wolf during every full moon is just another thing to take in stride.

“So, uh… You want me to buy extra dog food when I go shopping?” Odd asks, and Yumi isn’t sure if he’s trying to make light of the situation or making a misguided attempt at being genuinely helpful, but either way she isn’t in the mood at all and he receives a sharp dig in the ribs for his trouble.

Odd exclaims sharply, rubbing his side, but withers under Ulrich’s glare. Aelita has her arm around Yumi and simply grants him a disapproving shake of the head.

Jeremie is already opening up his laptop, talking in a breathless stream about scanners and digital blueprints and reverse-engineering and re-coding DNA from Yumi’s existing virtual structure. He’ll have the solution by next week.

“What about your final exams?” Yumi reminds him.

“Week and a half, then.” Without so much as a pause from the rapid click of his fingers against the keys, Jeremie looks up and smiles at her, but his mind is already somewhere else.

As it happens, between escalating XANA attacks and increasing homework loads and the clumsiness of Herve Pichon with a glass of water beside Jeremie’s laptop, it ends up taking a little longer than that. By the third transformation, Yumi’s smiles are more tired, her face more pinched and pale than the others have ever seen it. It’s hard to miss the anxious way Ulrich wrings his hands when Yumi is near, as though he is constantly at war with himself over whether his touch will comfort her.

She pretends not to notice. The dark sweep of her hair hides her face from his gaze, which flickers over her like a broken light.

–

 

“You know,” says Yumi, “call me crazy but I’m starting to think XANA really has it in for me.”

Ulrich considers this as he slings a punch at her.

“You mean more than the rest of us?”

Yumi dodges. The sharp point of her elbow meets with Ulrich’s chin. She watches without sympathy as he staggers backwards.

“I just mean that of all people, of course this whole werewolf thing was going to happen to me.”

A nearby tree gives Ulrich the momentum he needs to swing forward into another punch. The conversation gives way to laboured breathing as their sparring intensifies, nothing but the rustle of the grass in the park and dappled sunlight through the trees to draw away their focus.

Yumi watches Ulrich’s eyes, sees them slide to the right. She grabs his arm as he makes the right hook, heaves a grunt as she twists it behind his back. He cries out and struggles in her grasp, back to her now, close enough that the warm of her raises the hairs on the nape of his neck.

“Argh, Yumi!” he says, sharply, and she relents a little but still holds him there. He hooks his foot around her calf and tries to trip her, but Yumi holds him stubbornly upright.

She thinks about the first time, the expression on Ulrich’s face as he witnessed her transformation. Her fur, wet and black like an oil slick in the moonlight. His skin sheened with sweat.

The little grunts and gasps that escaped him as he struggled under the weight of her body, the paws that clamped down heavy on his chest.

Yumi draws in a shuddering breath. It’s like a memory from someone else’s dream, what comes after, delivered to her in stark, waking flashes in the days after the full moon has waned – glistening raw muscle, a rush of crimson, the primal need to tear and taste and trap her prey.

 

_“How bad was it, really?” she asked him afterwards as they sat in the dark outside her house, her hands around his arm, fingers running the length of the skin smooth and repaired after a return trip in time._

_“It was… Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s fixed now.” He flexes his arm in demonstration. “Do you really not remember?”_

_She shakes her head._

_Why she’s decided that lying is easier, she doesn’t know._

 

The memories seem to assault all her senses. The smell of him now, the musk and sweat that are uniquely him, masked by that deodorant that all teenage boys his age seem to wear. Muscles rippling under his shirt as he still tries to escape. The curve of his shoulder within tantalizing reach of her teeth…

“You’ve been training hard, huh?” he gasps, finally heaving his arm free, and Yumi blinks hard as she remembers where they are and why they’re here.

“Y-Yeah.”

Her chest is heaving. There’s a slight pinkness to Ulrich’s cheeks; Yumi wonders if she is blushing too.

Then Ulrich relaxes his stance and his face softens with concern. “Do you want to keep going? Or are you still hurting after-“ he gestures vaguely.

Yumi scowls. She wishes she had hidden it better, but her friends – and especially Ulrich – know her too well, see the pained expression and the extra tenderness in her muscles in the days after she has transformed.

“I’m fine, Ulrich.” Her tone is flat.

He looks taken aback. “All right, all right. We’re just worried, you know. I’m happy to spar with you, I just don’t want us to overdo it, that’s all.”

“I can handle things just fine on my own, I don’t need to be treated like an invalid.”

“Hey,” he exclaims, “No one’s saying that.”

She knows he’s right, but she’s suddenly filled with anger, a possessive sense of loss she expects arises from the absence of his body in her grip. Yumi shrugs, closes the gap between them with a few quick steps and extends her knee in a roundhouse kick.

Dropping low, Ulrich scrambles away. They duck and dive for several minutes more, his face determined, hers set in an ever deeper grimace.

“I saw the look on your face, when I first transformed,” she spits at last, between breaths.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t lie to me.” Her teeth are fully bared now and her punches come thicker and faster, Ulrich’s hands a blur as he races to keep up. “You were so disgusted, with what I’d become.”  
  
“Yumi, that’s-“

“And now you’re always looking at me like… like I’m about to take a bite out of you at any second. Like you’re _afraid_ of me.”

She’s breathing hard and her vision is blurry but whether it’s sweat or tears in her vision she can’t tell. She just wants it to be over, all of it – she wants her body back, her control; she wants to stop shrinking from Ulrich’s touch and the way it raises the hairs on her skin, the way it reminds her of the wolf’s fur standing on end; the way she no longer knows if she wants to kiss him or tear him to pieces with her teeth.

\--

 

When the sparring ends, Yumi brushes away all of Ulrich’s attempts to talk to her. The way he is looking at her is… something she can’t figure out, and Yumi hates not knowing where she stands with Ulrich to an even greater extent than usual.

Yumi refuses the invitation to walk back to Kadic together. Only when Ulrich is long gone does she crumple to the ground and slam a fist into the grass, where the mud catches in the creases of her skin.

When the first sob rises in her throat, she truly expects it to emerge as a growl.

“XANA, what have you done?”


End file.
